Fascinating rooks, beautifully described in 'Encounters with corvids' by Fionn Ó Marcaigh, illustrated by Aga Grandowicz.

'The rook stands out as our most social corvid species. We saw evidence of this that same morning, on our way to the ringing, when we had stopped at a petrol station to refuel ourselves with food from the deli. This was one of those small, fairly quiet places that seem so specific to their exact location – not one of the massive busy new plazas on the motorways that are all so similar they can blur your journeys together, giving a sense that you can’t be quite sure where in the country you were. We brought our food out to the car and used its roof as a picnic table. While we ate, we watched the spring morning form around us as the sun rose and gave new solidity to the buildings, and more people and cars began to stir into life. The local rooks, first one bird, and then several, were watching us at our watching, in that way of congregating quickly common to all social animals from ants to teenagers. They had come from the local rookery, a cluster of untidy stick nests bunched at the tops of the trees overlooking the forecourt. This is how we most often encounter rooks: they like to build these communal nesting sites on the edge of country towns or beside farms, in order to share whatever food we make available. This is one of the fascinating things about corvids: their intelligence and adaptability let them live alongside us, thriving in the same human-altered landscapes that many other birds find unsuitable. In the case of rooks, their colonies mirror our own tendency to build on the landscape, as they throw together their noisy little villages high in the trees. In farming areas, you might see a flock of rooks foraging through a recently worked field together, picking for insects with such a careful, formal air that they can look like little black-clad policemen searching for clues. At this petrol station, however, it was clear that the rooks’ diet included a lot of spicy potato wedges and the ends of breakfast rolls.'

Extract from 'Encounters with corvids' by Fionn Ó Marcaigh, illustrated by Aga Grandowicz.

To learn more about rooks and other corvids present in Ireland, consider getting a copy of the book here.